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The Helmet


The picture is me on the deck of the USS Okinawa, an LPH (Landing Platform Helicopter) probably around September of 1967. I still had an M-14 rifle, which I consider to be the best combat rifle ever made. I had traded my M-16 to a sergeant who didn't want to carry the weight. They took the M-14 away from me not long after this picture and made me get an M-16. I had three different M-16 rifles in Vietnam and they all jammed every third round and would only work with seventeen rounds in the magazine instead of twenty. The defects in those early versions were paid for with American lives.
The picture also shows my second helmet. My first helmet had contained a morbid surprise. I had arrived in Danang from Okinawa aboard a C-130. I was assigned to the 1st Battalion 3rd Marine Regiment. The battalion rear was on Hill 327, but they were getting ready to go on float aboard the LPH. From Hill 327, we could see for what seemed like miles of super-heated ground in a hazy and humid mist. My skin felt like it had been dipped in motor oil. Everything was covered in a bronze colored dust. I felt like I had been dropped into some prehistoric world like the one in Conan the Barbarian stories. I was a stranger in a strange land. I couldn't imagine making it through a year in this place. Since everything in the military is hurry up and wait, they lined us up to get our 782 gear: helmet, pack, cartridge belt, etc. When it was my turn, the supply guy handed me a helmet. It had a small hole in one side and a large blowout hole in the other.
I told the supply guy that my helmet had a bullet hole in it. "That's good luck," the guy said. "it won't get hit again."
I walked over and sat next to another new guy. When I turned the helmet over to adjust the liner, it was a cracked mess of clotted blood mixed with red tinted beige scrambled egg brains. "Jesus," the guy next to me said. I felt slimy all over. I had been hit in the head with rocks as a kid, but I couldn't imagine the instant shock of a high velocity bullet to the skull. Holding the helmet like a hot soup bowl, I walked back to the front of the line and showed it to the supply man.
"This is full of brains and I can't wear it."
"Sorry about that," he said, and tossed it over his shoulder into a pile of gear I hadn't noticed before. The pile contained bloody 782 gear: packs, helmets, and even one bloodstained boot. I kept wondering if there was a foot inside. The supply man saw me looking at the pile as he handed me another helmet. "You'll get used to it," he said. "It happens all the time."
I never did get used to it. I'm glad I didn't put the helmet on before looking inside. Because I'm a writer, people often ask me if that little incident is fiction. No. It actually happened. The supply man didn't bother to check the gear. I never knew who that Marine was, but he's been with me ever since...

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